


transfiguration's gonna come for me at last (& i will burn hotter than the sun)

by brampersandon



Category: Football RPF
Genre: A.C. Milan, Juventus Turin, M/M, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 07:16:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14183739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brampersandon/pseuds/brampersandon
Summary: It's something they threw around after failing to qualify for the World Cup, the kind of ridiculous hypothetical that can only come up after splitting two bottles of wine and showing no sign of stopping. "We won't go up against one another many more times," he'd told Gigi, leaning in too close, words running together. "Loser should have to pay up.""I don't want your money," Gigi said. But he knew what Leo meant, a hand snaking up his shirt.





	transfiguration's gonna come for me at last (& i will burn hotter than the sun)

**Author's Note:**

> half of me: filled to the brim with feelings about leo's inglorious return to play against juve for the first time since his transfer  
> the other half of me: okay but [why did gigi look well and proper fucked](https://i.imgur.com/DB350GK.jpg) after the match?
> 
> so here we are.
> 
> title comes from _heretic pride_ by the mountain goats.

Being back at the Allianz is— overwhelming, to be sure, but not for the reasons most would assume.

Every corner of the stadium holds another memory close to his heart. Every echo of his footfall says, _this is not yours_ ; it says even so, _welcome back_. Everyone looks at him like he isn't doing this right, like he should let his head hang with guilt.

He doesn't. He recognizes one of the security staff at the entrance for the visiting team, breaks out into a grin and clasps his hand. This is not some sort of hell ready to swallow him up. This is an old haunt, a place of inevitable returning.

If anyone expects him to let shame bear down on him until he collapses, Leo can't wait to show them just how wrong they are.

 

 

 

 

"You're in good spirits," Gigi says out of the corner of his mouth when Leo skims a kiss over his cheek.

Leo only shrugs, adjusts the armband around his bicep. "Why not?"

"Why not," Gigi echoes, but he's smiling too.

When they confer with the referees before the start of the match, Gigi rests his hand against the back of his neck, gives a gentle squeeze once, twice. It's a gesture Leo recognizes, trying to set him at ease, and something about it makes laughter rise up unbidden in the back of his throat. He isn't nervous. He isn't concerned. The people who hate him will hate him, the people who love him will love him — he already plotted that course months ago, nothing he does in the next ninety minutes will change it. 

But if Gigi thinks he needs the reassurance, he'll take it. 

 

 

 

 

A solid wall of noise rings out around the stadium the second he traps the ball under his foot, and once he's passed it away, he ducks his head to hide a smile in the collar of his shirt.

Okay. So it's going to be that kind of night.

 

 

 

 

Hakan hasn't even set the ball down for his corner and Leo already knows.

He can see it, clear as the last cloudless day he spent with them in the Maldives. The space between Giorgio and Andrea, the space where he would have been — he's there again, he's forcing his way in, he's throwing himself forward like he'd die to do this.

If Gigi had jumped, Leo realizes, he could have saved it.

He doesn't. The ball hits the back of the net and he stumbles, grazes his fingers against the ground as he uses his own momentum to pick himself back up, never stopping, his back to the Juventus supporters, his eyes wild.

It's the loudest reception he's ever gotten for one of his goals, and it isn't entirely one of praise.

He loves it, he realizes as Romagnoli swings into his arms. Let them jeer, let them scream, let them curse his name. He loves every last fucking second of it. 

 

 

 

 

Andrea sidles up to him on their way off the pitch, pinches his side. "You couldn't have waited until the second half?"

He has a hand cupped over his mouth, but he's grinning when he speaks. Leo returns it. "Gotta give the old man something to work toward," he says, and there's a violent shock of nostalgia when Andrea throws his head back and laughs up to the sky, loud and uninhibited. Like nothing's changed. Like no matter the stripes on his back, there's still this, this thing they always had, sniping shitty jokes at one another to blow off steam, pushing at bruises just to say they could.

Most days, he doesn't miss it. He still doesn't today. But for those few seconds it takes before Andrea's laughter stops ringing in his ears, he does. Suddenly, achingly, breathlessly, like when one tries to reach for something and misses a limb long gone.

 

 

 

 

At the half, he gathers them in the locker room. He tells them, _we can't sit back_. He tells them, _it isn't enough to go for a draw_. He tells them, _this is when Juventus come alive_. 

Because he knows the feeling well — a legacy resting precariously on your shoulders, pressure from every side and no excuse for failure. His back has been against that wall more times than he can remember. And he's done it. Not every time, but more often than not. He's reached deep down to find something he didn't know he had in him, leaned hard on the rest of the team, and managed to pull out some ridiculous sort of magic at the last gasp. _Fino alla fine_.

Leo knows.

He looks around the circle at all of them, locks eyes with Cutrone. "So let's take it from them," he says, and the dead silence of the locker room roars to fiery, exhilarating life.

 

 

 

 

With every shot that finds the crossbar, the post, Gigi's gloves, Leo sets his jaw and thinks, _one more, just one more_. If they keep putting in the effort, they have to get something back. If they keep knocking, luck has to answer eventually.

He's helpless on the wrong side of the goal when Juan marks his comeback with a neatly executed header; worse yet, he's outpaced by Costa's tricks and barely has time to get there before Paulo slides the ball to Sami and— there it is. What else? They do what they do, and they do it well. It's exhausting, being on the other end of it. He's not used to it yet.

When the whistle blows, he turns to the Milan supporters first, gaze soft and hands raised, _mea culpa_. The only forgiveness he's interested in comes from them.

 

 

 

 

Giorgio keeps an arm over his shoulders, kisses his cheek. "You played well," he says, and that's only sort of true, Leo knows he didn't defend for shit. "I've missed you," he adds, and _that's_ the whole truth.

"So don't back out of international duty next time," Leo snorts. "Speaking of — you _sure_ you were injured?"

"He only faked it so he wouldn't have to babysit you," Gigi says, breezing right on by and tugging Leo away from Giorgio's grip. When Leo turns to hug him, he cups the side of his head and draws him in close. It's only one word he murmurs against his ear — "Forfeit?" — but it's enough to straighten Leo's spine and flush the tips of his ears. 

"Sure, sure." His voice breaks a little on the words in spite of his best efforts. Gigi pulls away, eyes alight, and rubs a hand along the back of his head as they both turn toward Mehdi.

 

 

 

 

(Claudio's already fully dressed and on his way out by the time Leo heads in toward the locker room — makes sense, there's not much to do afterward when you didn't play a single second — but it's. Off. None of it sits right with Leo.

He catches him by his elbow, starts to ask what's going on, but Claudio preempts it. When he turns to face him, he's got his media ready smile on, the kind that gets him commercials and modeling gigs and the undying love of every person under Turin's sun. "It's fine," he says, like Leo hasn't known him for nearly a decade, like he can't hear a lie just from the way he breathes. "Good match. Catch up after the Coppa?"

Leo levels a long stare at him, and then Claudio shakes his arm out of his grip and walks on.)

 

 

 

 

He hangs around until most everyone's cleared out, lingering on his bench, packing and re-packing his bag. He has to talk to the press, he explains. He has a dinner to attend. He's making his own arrangements to get back to Milan. He'll see them all on Monday. Good effort today. They'll continue on together. Happy Easter.

It's not honorable, lying to his own team, but Leo figures it ranks relatively low on his list of sins.

When he slips down the hall, through the winding corridor and into Juve's locker room, it's— disarming, like coming back home to Viterbo and finding the furniture in his childhood bedroom rearranged. Leo's positive that it isn't empty by coincidence. There's one shower running, and he knows. He knows.

It's something they threw around after failing to qualify for the World Cup, the kind of ridiculous hypothetical that can only come up after splitting two bottles of wine and showing no sign of stopping. "We won't go up against one another many more times," he'd told Gigi, leaning in too close, words running together. "Loser should have to pay up."

"I don't want your money," Gigi said. But he knew what Leo meant, a hand snaking up his shirt.

So.

He strips off his kit, drops it into the bag in front of Gigi's locker. Keeps the armband on. They had never agreed on that formally, but it seems like an unspoken sort of thing. 

"So," he drawls as he rounds the corner of the shower and finds Gigi there, already washed up, wrapped in steam. "Loser pays, right, but what if loser also broke winner's streak?"

Gigi lets out an echoing bark of a laugh as he reaches for Leo's wrist and tugs him in. He doesn't deign to answer that. Instead he only steps back enough to get Leo under the warm spray as well and asks his own question: "You know they're waiting on me out there, right?" 

Leo shrugs, feigning innocence. "Maybe if you take long enough they'll give up."

He's halfway through a mumbled curse when he drags Leo even closer, lays both hands against his jaw to frame his face as he kisses him. Leo knows they're not going to risk any wayward journalists coming to hunt him down, they're going to make this quick, so he reaches between them to stroke Gigi, warm and already half-hard. The appreciative little noise he makes into Leo's mouth shouldn't affect him so much — they _just_ saw one another, there was plenty of that over the break — but Leo's always been weak for him.

He breaks off, bites at the stubbled skin of Gigi's jawline, moves down his neck. "What's the forfeit?" 

Gigi lets him carry on like that for a bit, mouthing wetly at his neck and moving his wrist far too slow, before both of his strong hands land on Leo's shoulders. 

There's that same shock of familiarity when his knees hit the tiled floor, when he grins up at Gigi and presses a deliberate kiss to the soft jut of his hip bone. It's old times, he thinks, except there's the red and white arm band soaked through against his arm and the memory of his goal playing behind his eyes when he closes them.

Gigi's hand curls over the back of his neck, a mirror of his gesture before the match, and he guides Leo forward. He squeezes once when Leo takes him into his mouth, twice when he hums and slides his hands up Gigi's thighs.

The water's mostly hitting Gigi, but it drips down on him often enough that he can't keep his eyes open for long. When he does manage to glance up, Gigi's entirely focused on him, eyes heavy-lidded and mouth curved into a lazy smile. He could do this for hours, Leo knows it, but— it's quite literally not the time for that. Instead he only raises his eyebrows like a silent proposal before letting his eyes slip shut again, relaxes as best he can and bobs his head forward until his nose brushes low against the wet skin of Gigi's stomach.

Somewhere beneath the pounding of the water, he hears Gigi inhale on a swear, and then the hand on his neck drifts up to cup his head, and Gigi's hips are moving, and yes, _yes_ , there it is, that desperation they were missing.

It's a forfeit, he reminds himself, so he tucks his hands behind his back and clasps right fingers around left wrist. Gigi must still be watching him; he hisses out his name and pulses his fingers against Leo's skull. There's nothing there to grab, only the soft fuzz of his buzz cut, but he knows what Gigi's trying to get at. He urges him on, hollowing his cheeks, trying to do as much as he can with Gigi's pace getting more erratic and water dripping down his nose. 

Not much of a forfeit at all, honestly, not when this is one of Leo's favorite things, one of the only times he feels calm — when he doesn't have to think, when he can let Gigi snap his hips and push him down to hold him there as he comes, the strong hand cradling his head starting to shake when he finally pulls away. It's as much for Leo as it is for him, they both know that. It's clear enough in the way Leo looks up at him after the fact, blissed out and reverent.

Leo swallows hard after Gigi pulls back, wipes vaguely at his mouth and lets the water do the rest of the work for him. His voice is rough when he asks, "Are you gonna be able to talk to the press after that?"

Gigi leans his head back into the stream of water, panting, and nods. 

He can't stop himself from scratching his fingers along the backside of his thigh. "Not very convincing," he trills.

In one swift movement, Gigi hooks him under his arms and lifts him up to his feet, wraps both arms around Leo to pull him in and kiss him again. "I can say words perfectly well," he murmurs against Leo's lips, then, as if to prove a point: "Thank you."

He turns the water off, grabs a towel for Leo and one for himself. Leo watches him as he hastily scrubs it against his hair, then his chest, then wraps it around his waist and goes searching for his clothes. He leans one hip against the wall and reminds him, "Next match has a trophy on the line, so I feel like the forfeit should be bigger."

Gigi shoots him a withering look before pulling on his undershirt. "You're a glutton for punishment," he says, his tone nothing but false pity.

"Bastard. Here." While Gigi rushes to button up his shirt, he pads his way over to him, makes sure his hands are dry before grabbing for the tie hanging up in his locker. As soon as Gigi's ready, he loops it around his collar and ties it for him, which looks— well, it could look better. He doesn't do that for other people that often.

Once Gigi's got his trousers and belt on, he wipes the smudges of steam off a mirror and tries to finger-comb his hair into place. "I look like I got caught in a windstorm," he sighs, pulls a little at the sloppy knot of the tie before abandoning it to find his shoes.

Leo nods sagely, still naked but for the towel around his waist. "Hurricane blowjob," he says, gravely serious.

Bent over to tie his shoes, Gigi laughs so hard he knocks his head against the side of the locker, then laughs even harder. He looks like a complete mess, it's true, but when he stands up straight to pull on his jacket and smooths his palms over the lapels, something lifts in Leo's chest. He tries to cover the soft smile spreading over his features when Gigi hoists his bag over his shoulder and looks at him. 

"Where are you staying tonight?" he asks, fiddling with the band of his watch. Leo reaches out to help with that too.

"You know." It snaps into place and Gigi shakes out his wrist, gives one more futile attempt at managing his hair. "I'll see you there. Now go tell them I broke your spirit and you'll never get another clean sheet again."

Gigi leans in, presses the quickest kiss to his cheek, and he's already out the door and halfway down the hall before Leo remembers his kit's in that bag. 

Fuck.

Well.

It isn't like it's the first time he's had to duck and weave to another locker room in only a towel. If anyone asks, he can say he got confused, forgot which shower he was supposed to use. Old habits and all that.

**Author's Note:**

> \- in my life i will never see a sight more unexpectedly delightful than leo being the last one to arrive in the tunnel before the match, grinning and giggling like a fool. DUDE CLEARLY HAD THE TIME OF HIS LIFE DURING THIS MATCH. that's more interesting and more painful to me than overwrought sturm und drang could ever be. 
> 
> \- [there really is no need to touch that much while talking to the refs but go off i guess](https://thefootballblog.tumblr.com/post/172477932489)
> 
> \- when leo scored, juve were at 959 minutes without conceding a goal. gigi last set the record at 974 minutes and was well on track to break it. really, it couldn't have been anyone else to derail that for them.
> 
> \- leo, in [his own words](https://www.football-italia.net/119290/bonucci-i-wasnt-going-celebrate), on why he celebrated his goal: _the jeers made up my mind_. i just love him. every last awful, stubborn, defiant, prideful nook and cranny of him.
> 
> \- thanks for reading! ♥ you can find me on [tumblr](http://strikerbacks.tumblr.com) if you're so inclined.


End file.
